Beauchamp followed him, after giving a sharp glance at Henry Wittingham, and at the door of the house they saw a horse standing which seemed to have been ridden hard. CHAPTER IX. In which a very young Actor makes an unexpected Appearance on the Scene. Mr. Beauchamp was sitting alone in the little room of the inn about five hours after Ned Hayward had left him. The day had been very warm for the season of the year, and though he had taken his walk as usual in the most shady and pensive places he could discover, he had found it oppressive, and had returned sooner than he ordinarily did. Mr. Groomber, worthy Mr. Groomber, the landlord of the White Hart, had perceived his return through the glass-doors of the bar, and had rolled in to tell him, as a piece of news, that the post-boy who had driven Mrs. and Miss Clifford had been, as he termed it, "had up" before Mr. Wittingham and examined, but had been speedily dismissed, he having sworn most valorously that he could not identify any of the persons concerned in stopping the chaise on the preceding night. Mr. Beauchamp merely replied, "I thought so," and taking up a book, gave quiet intimation that he wished to be alone. As soon as the host had retired, however, he suffered the open volume to drop upon his knee, and gave himself up to thought, apparently of not the most cheerful kind, for the broad open brow became somewhat contracted, the fine dark eyes fixed upon one particular spot on the floor, the lip assumed a melancholy, even a cynical expression, and without moving limb or feature, he remained for at least a quarter of an hour in meditation most profound. For my own part I do not see what business men have to think at all. If it be of the past, can they recall it? If it be of the future, can they govern it? No, no, and the present is for action, not for meditation. It was very foolish of Mr. Beauchamp to think, but yet he did so, and profoundly. But of what were his thoughts? I cannot tell. Some I know, some I do not know; or rather like an intercepted letter, the actual course of his meditation was plain enough, written in clear and forcible lines, but the wide world of circumstances to which it referred, its relations with his fate, with his past history, with his present condition, with his future prospects, were all in darkness.